Mexico’s Televisa suffers

Grupo Televisa’s Q3 results have not been helped by the depreciation of the country’s Peso currency against the Dollar. Net profit at Mexico’s largest broadcaster declined 3.6 per cent as its costs rose.

Sales rose some 10.5 per cent to 25 billion Pesos during the quarter-year (22.7 billion in the same period last year).

Televisa’s DTH product is marketed as Sky, and its revenues were “relatively flat” said co-CEO Alfonso de Angoitia. Its video connections fell 126,000 out of its customer base of 8 million.

The company’s cable division enjoyed double-digit growth in revenues, up 10.8 per cent, while the MSO subsidiary grew even faster with revenues up 12.6 per cent, and a net 274,000 growth in RGUs.

Another successful division was Televisa’s OTT ‘Television Everywhere’ app which offers 68 live channels and some 30,000 archive assets. “During September, we have close to 175,000 users. This is three times the number of users just six months ago,” said de Angoitia.

He added that Televisa was restructuring its bundles of video and broadband services, and the broadcaster is also undertaking an overall strategic review of its operations.

“We continue to explore various combinations. But as we have mentioned in the past, we will only enter into a transaction that makes sense and that is good for our shareholders. And of course, as you know, many things are on the table. We won’t do a deal just to do a deal or just to announce a deal that doesn’t make any sense,” he said.